Things I Do Not Like: Dr Who

Things I Do Not Like: Dr Who

July 28, 2010, 11:54 AM
Filed under: Things I Do Not Like | Tags: Dr Who, Things I Do Not Like

Please don’t throw rocks at me.  I am aware that many of my esteemed associates are very, very fond indeed of Dr Who, but you know what?  You’re all nerds.  Yep.  I said it.  Thing is, I’m allowed to use the n-word, because I’m one, too.  I’m of the subset drama nerd (sub-subset comedy nerd), but I’m a nerd nonetheless.  And yes, I’m aware that there’s a lot of crossover between scifi nerds and drama nerds, but I’m a one trick pony.  I don’t care for your anime.  I laugh at your Dungeons and Dragons.  I do not give a hoot for Star Wars, Star Trek or Stargate.  I am far too busy doing Silly Walks and imploring people to understand that ‘wherefore’ does not mean ‘where’.  (It means why.  She is asking why on earth he had to be a Montague when everything would be peachy if he were a Smith or a Jones or a Takanawa.)

I digress.  The fact is, I have always regarded Dr Who as the nerdiest of nerdy nerd things.  An alien who flies around in a magic box, assisted by a pretty girl, fighting monsters made from aluminium foil and plasticine?  No thanks.  I was vaguely aware of a man in a scarf after my sister, who does belong to the scifi nerd subset, knitted a replica.  How I laughed!  On the inside, though, Dear Reader, I was crying.  Why?  I was very severely traumatised by Dr Who at a young age.

As far as I remember, sometime in the very late eighties/early nineties Dr Who used to be shown on the ABC at 6pm.  We were only allowed to watch the ABC – and in very small amounts – because my mother is very, very mean, and after Widget the World Watcher or Captain Planet or whatever was on at 5:30 the TV would usually be switched unceremoniously off.  On occasion, however, we happened to be watching after 6pm.  I’m not sure why, perhaps our grandmother was babysitting us (we got to watch sitcoms and eat icecream.  It was awesome!).  Dr Who came on, and while I remember absolutely nothing about the show in general, I do remember very, very clearly that on this occasion he was battling some kind of cactus man.  I was terrified of the cactus man.

To be honest I don't recall the Dr himself being a cactus man, but this image seems pretty relevant.

As the fact that I have found a picture may indicate, I have done some Googling.  Apparently Cactus Man was called Meglos.  He was a baddy.  Obviously.  All I really remember is a man (maybe Dr Who, I don’t know – he would have been just some dude in a scarf to me) changing into Cactus Man in a shower-like chamber.  Needless to say, I had zero interest in taking a shower that night, but I had to anyway.  I was scared of the bathroom in general for a few weeks.  No, I didn’t really think I would turn into Cactus Girl, but I was fearful nonetheless.

That killed any chance Dr Who ever had with me.  In the years that followed I have had very little to do with him.  Some friends of mine, as I said, are quite keen, and in the era of the reboot I’ve been to a Dr Who night of theirs after a special was released online.  He did not have a scarf this time.  He had a leather jacket and he was on a big bus battling sand monsters.  Meh.  It wasn’t torture, some of it was mildly entertaining, but I was the annoying one up the back asking ‘Who’s that?’  ‘Is she bad or good?’  ‘I thought he was dead.’  I just didn’t know enough about the characters, and to be honest, I wasn’t too enthused about finding out more.

But all that is going to change.  In a wonderful bit of cross-promotion, I have been cast in an Impro Mafia show called ‘The Professor: Adventures in Space and Time’  (Sunday, August 22, Brisbane Arts Theatre).  As you may have guessed, it is a Dr Who homage/parody.  If you are a fan of the good Doctor, worry not.  Everyone else in the show would kill for him if necessary.  And then there’s Amy!  Needless to say, I am going to do a bit of research.  Advise me.  Teach me.  Warp my mind.  Then come to see if any of it sinks in.

How should I start my educational journey, dear nerds?

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